Category: Social Networking

Social Networking, Work2 Comments

City of Lincoln Council and Social Media – Baby Steps to Change

Andrew Beeken

First post of the new year! Hello all, hope you had a great one. The influence for this post came from an email sent to me as City of Lincoln Council Web Co-ordinator by SocITM’s Helen Williams. She was asking what our approach, as an organisation, to social media was, how we were using it and who was involved. As I sat mulling this in preparation to respond I though I would share the tale of our social media strategy here as it may be of interest/use to readers of this blog. Here we go… As an organisation, the general approach to … Continue reading City of Lincoln Council and Social Media – Baby Steps to Change

Discussion, Social Networking2 Comments

Is the Spending Challenge website a menace to society?

Andrew Beeken

Because that’s what this article would have you believe… “Sterilise claimants urges racist treasury website”. Wow, that’s a pretty strong accusation, especially one levelled at a website funded and promoted by the UK government. But, as always with these kinds of knee jerk articles, it’s missing the point of its target entirely. “[we need] your urgent help in getting a government website closed down” states the article. Extreme? Just a little. Digging into the Spending Challenge website does yield a scary number of offensive and downright bigotted opinions from the users of the site. But in no way should it … Continue reading Is the Spending Challenge website a menace to society?

Events, Social NetworkingLeave a comment

Go Go LocalGovCamp!

Andrew Beeken

After last night’s debacle (see my Twitter stream) doubt was cast on my attendance today, but I’m happy to announce that I WILL be atending LocalGovCamp in Birmingham. I’m writing this before I pack up my laptop and drive over there; my intention is to blog as much as possible and take as many notes as I can. It should be a really cool, freeform experience and I’m loking forward to picking the brains of some of my fellow local gov types. I may be hosting a discussion on the use of contractors VS open source software for web and … Continue reading Go Go LocalGovCamp!

Projects, Social NetworkingLeave a comment

Local Authority Mapping Collective

Andrew Beeken

This is a follow up to the last post I made. I have set up a gro.up called the Local Authority Mapping Collective. I’d like to encourage anyone from Local Government or who has an interest in making this information publically available to sign up and get involved in our collaborations. At the moment the gro.up is being moderated by myself and Stuart Harrison and we are only accepting registrations on this basis – if you’re not local gov, let us know why you have an interest in joining. Continue reading Local Authority Mapping Collective

Design, Projects, Social Networking2 Comments

TwitterPlan

Andrew Beeken

As Staind sang, It’s Been a While (ouch!) but I’m back with a heads up on a project I played a small part in. Stuart Harrison of Lichfield DC has just rolled out his Twitter / PlanningAlerts.com mashup, TwitterPlan. You can find out all the deets in Stuart’s TwitterPlan blog post, but for my part I developed the look and feel of the site, taking obvious influence from the Twitter look while trying to keep things bold and user friendly. Kudos also needs to go to Mike Pollard who designed the birdie illustration which adorns the service. It’s still in alpha … Continue reading TwitterPlan